1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method for the control of data execution. More particularly, the present invention relates to a data execution control method and system that are capable of controlling the execution of specific user data on the basis of access authentication levels assigned to multiple Subscriber Identity Modules (SIMs).
2. Description of the Related Art
With the advance of mobile computing and wireless communication technologies, mobile phones have been developed to accommodate various mobile communication services across networks. Such mobile phones have expanded user mobility so as to provide a user with voice and data connectivity anytime and anywhere, even on the move. Also, advanced applications and extended storage capability of such mobile phones allow the user to perform various Internet-based services such as searching for information (for example, stock exchange, weather, sports, and traffic information), chatting and playing games online, and downloading multimedia contents (for example, video and audio files).
In certain wireless communication technologies, a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) is used for storing network specific information used to authenticate and identify subscribers on the network. The SIM is a removable smart card such that the user can change phones by simply removing the SIM card from one mobile phone and inserting it into another mobile phone.
In other words, a single mobile phone can be used by multiple users simply by each user inserting their own SIM card. However, in this case, the user data owned by a specific user (for example, private information and pay contents files) may be unwantedly shared with other users. That is, a secondary user can access the data, which is stored by a primary user in the mobile phone, by inserting his/her own SIM card which is different from the primary user's.
In the case of pay contents, since the contents paid by one user may be played or rendered by other non-paid users having different SIM cards, such content share can be a loss in view of the content provider.
Also, sharing a mobile phone with multiple users having different SIM cards may cause another problem in association with Digital Rights Management (DRM) contents.
If the DRM content purchased by a user is allowed to be played only a limited number of times and the DRM content is played by other users accidentally or intentionally, the content play times may run out, thereby wasting money in view of the user who purchased the DRM content.
Also, the conventional SIM-based mobile phone is disadvantageous in terms of privacy, since a user's specific private data can be exposed by other SIM card owners.